Treasury Board President Stockwell Day says statistics showing crime in Canada is declining may not be accurate.

Day says the crime rate per 1,000 people has dropped, but adds that more people are not reporting crimes.

He says surveys suggest many people don't bother calling the police on some crimes.The numbers are alarming, he says, although he did not elaborate.

Day says this is why the government plans to hike spending for new prisons.

What Stock failed to mention is that the reason we can't necessarily take those crime statistics at face value is because crime reporting is voluntary, which leads to an array of challenges that can skew the numbers. With the reporting pool self-selecting, some groups may be more likely to report criminal events: the middle-class, for example, or the the family of a murder victim. And those who live in high-crime neighbourhoods, or who are the victim of a minor crime such as j-walking, might not bother to report.

"the No. 1 reason given by individuals for not calling the police about a crime is that they believe it was not serious enough. Only two per cent said they feared retribution, and one per cent said they felt the police may be biased."

If you do, however, believe that unreported crime is a problem, then you should probably be doing something to encourage people to actually come forward and report crime. That is not happening, however.

Stock was using unreported crime as a justification for spending billions on new prisons despite the falling (reported) crime rate. Which isn't a compelling justification, because you can't put unreported criminals in jail.

"If you do, however, believe that unreported crime is a problem, then you should probably be doing something to encourage people to actually come forward and report crime. That is not happening, however."

You mean like advocating for the people that perpetrate the crimes to be taken off the street... placing them where they can't continue to harass law abiding citizens? Getting rid of the retribution factor no matter how small?